


this world all gone to war

by defcontwo



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-30
Updated: 2012-04-30
Packaged: 2017-11-04 15:06:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/395195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>written for illyrias_acolyte | </p>
<p>These are the moments she feels at ease, when rain comes through the trees as a fine mist, coating everything in sight with droplets, and everything seems just that much softer, like maybe things are not all quite as bad as they seem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this world all gone to war

_I'll rip your throat out._

+

It is something she used to say all the time - in jest, during idle moments while out in the forests, working with the boys. They are a rough and tumble group, characteristic of District Seven, all worn down plaid and calloused fingers as they throw insults at each other as easily as they chop down trees.

These are the moments she feels at ease, when rain comes through the trees as a fine mist, coating everything in sight with droplets, and everything seems just that much softer, like maybe things are not all quite as bad as they seem.

I'll rip your throat out, she says as James moves towards a tree that she has her eye on, and he laughs and says, not if I don't chop your arms off first, then what kind of worker will you be?

They all laugh, loudly and freely, because it is easier to make light of that which scares you, easier to mock the fact that if a Peacekeeper hears any of them, that's exactly what will happen; the quickest way to punish someone in District Seven is to take away their means of livelihood.

Everyone knows what happens to those who can't work anymore. Starvation is the wolf breathing down their neck, heavy and terrifying, just as much the symbol of District Seven as the ever-present rain.

And so Joahnna shakes back her dark hair and mocks relentlessly, pushing reality further away because it can't touch them, not all the way out here.

(One day, axe in hand, she will slice a young man's throat open. He will be a Career, the only other Tribute left in the Games, with a mad look in his eyes not unlike that of a wild animal’s. The cut won’t be clean, though - her hands won’t be steady enough for that and she will make a horrible mess of it. As he will choke on his life's blood, Johanna will crouch down, paralyzed in shock - she will do nothing to make it quick. She will sit, axe clutched tightly in hand, and watch him die slowly as she waits for the sound of the cannon to come).

I'll rip your throat out, she will say after the Games, and will not be able to stop the sight of the Career's blood-stained clothes from flooding her mind's eye.

+

She had a mother and a father once. She knows because there are pictures and stories from the villagers to prove it, although now it is just her and the broken-down house that passes for an orphanage.

They were good people, the Masons; it's a shame about the accident. This is what everyone tells her - as if it really was an accident, as if the Peacekeepers didn't discover Johanna’s parents fleeing in the night, trying to make for parts unknown in the wilderness.

As if they hadn’t been executed in the town square while their four-year-old daughter, held screaming in the arms of a guard, watched on.

+

This is what Johanna knows, the only thing of which she is certain:

She is best with an axe in her hand but here in District Seven, that is nothing special. She can flip a man twice her weight and make a decent soup out of pine needles. She has no patience for literature in school but has a knack for the sciences that her teachers always told her she should take more time to care about - only what good is chemistry in the lumber district?

She went to work early, at age fourteen, because she couldn't stand the thought of living in that godforsaken orphanage until she was eighteen. She loves her crew, for all that she doesn't have the courage to show.

She has grown up bitter, rough around the edges, with a sharp tongue that drives people off more often than it draws them in.

There are days when she wishes that she could stop, rewind her life, and do it all over - go back to the drawing board, rip it all up, and start again, be someone better, someone kinder, someone worthy of the family that died trying to bring her freedom. She wishes she could just stop, break herself down to the essentials, and rebuild, but habits die hard and after a while - well, what’s the use, really? 

(She will scoff and tell herself that she doesn't have anyone because she doesn't need anyone. These are both lies. The crew loves her every bit as much as she loves them. She has Sharon, who is all red hair and bright optimism to match, who will hold her at night when Johanna dreams of gunshots and a mother's song that will never be heard again. Admitting to any of _that_ , however, is admitting that she has something to lose, and it's been a long time since Johanna dared to let herself have that).

\+ 

_Mason, Johanna._

When her name is called, Johanna thinks of all of the feelings that tributes must have had in the past at this moment - shock, terror, utter disbelief - but all she feels is relief. She has felt deep in her bones, every single year that she's stood here, that her time would come. You're a bad luck charm, Miss Mason, one of her old teachers once told her, and she's never once thought he was wrong. She got her parents killed, in her own way, and it was always just a matter of time before it all caught up to her. 

The suspense has eaten at her every year since she was twelve, and now, at seventeen, she has found her relief. 

She senses Sharon at her back, already too old for the reaping but standing with Johanna anyways, scrabbling to hold onto the back of her shirt, as if holding Johanna in place will keep the Games from happening. Johanna turns and gently removes Sharon's white, clenched fingers from her well-worn shirt. "It's fine," Johanna says, in a voice more gentle than she's ever used. "It's going to be fine."

(It isn't). 

\+ 

"Play weak." 

Johanna shakes her head slowly, because the thought of letting the Capitol think that she's anything other than what she is rankles in a way she can't put her finger on. 

"No, don't give me that. Play weak," James says insistently, both hands on her shoulders, looking every inch the concerned brother she's never had. "You've always been tougher than you look. If they don't think you're a threat, they won't bother with you. What have you always said, every year, that the only way to win the Games is?" 

"To outsmart them," Johanna says, voice low, not quite yet willing to accept that “playing weak” is the path she will have to take. 

"It's the only way you'll come home to us," James says, and he always has known just what to say to get under her skin. The memory of Sharon’s tears, falling fast and steady as they said their goodbyes only moments before, makes the decision for her. 

"All right, I'll play weak," Johanna says. 

James nods firmly. "Play weak, win the Games, and then you're free. They won't be able to touch you again." 

 

+

James’s words ring through her head as she stands over the body of the dead Career, blood staining her hands, as she lets out a low cry - at last, she is free. 

She can go home. She can return to District Seven, battered and hurting, but alive nonetheless. She has a family - they’re not much but they’re hers and they are all of them beyond the reach of the Hunger Games now. The Capitol can’t hurt them anymore, Johanna thinks hazily, too wrung out for cynicism or fear, and she lets that thought bring a tight smile to her face. 

(She’s wrong).


End file.
